another basket. “Why do you ask?”
“Last night a man told his three buddies to bundle me.”
“That’s messed up. You sure they weren’t Amish or something?”
Bolan laughed. “They were not plain.”
“Sounds like we have a problem. What’s the plan? I infiltrate?”
“We both infiltrate. You’re my ticket in.”
Koa looked Bolan up and down. “Good luck, Your Caucasianess.”
“I’m getting some help with that.”
“Should be interesting.”
Bolan lifted his chin at a red Jeep coming down the street. “You’ll get to see it now.”
CIA groomer Pegarella Hu barely cracked five feet. She literally jumped out of the Jeep with what looked like a massive fishing tackle box tucked under her arm. In South Pacific intelligence circles she was famous for her smile, her designer cupcakes and her ability to facilitate field operation role camouflage. Her cereal-box-worthy grin faded slightly as she looked at Bolan from head to toe. “You’re the one I’m supposed to Island up?”
“Yup.”
“This should be interesting.”
Koa nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I said.”
* * *
“You ready for your big reveal?” Hu asked.
“Can’t wait, Peg,” Bolan replied. His skin and scalp were alternately burning and tingling. The soldier stood, turned and looked at himself in the mirror.
“Well, fuck me running with a pitchfork,” Koa said.
Wearing only a pair of boxers, Bolan stared at himself. He had to admit it was an impressive sight. Hu had taken her CIA grooming skills and gone to town. She had depilated Bolan from his upper lip to his insteps. Hu had thickened, coarsened and extended Bolan’s naturally black hair into a shag. She had thinned his eyebrows and created a few other minor miracles with the help of cosmetics, but it was Bolan’s skin that was most impressive.
The soldier had spent more time than was wise under desert, jungle and equatorial suns. He tanned, and when he did it turned him ruddy and coppery. Agent Hu had stained his skin with a Da Vinci–like grasp of color. She had artificially tanned him but now his skin had a subtle but unmistakable golden base. Bolan and Koa looked nothing alike—and Hu had made Bolan’s skin several shades darker—but she’d given Bolan the same complexion as Koa.
Hu had also chemically tightened Bolan’s pores to give him the porcelain skin look. There wasn’t much to be done about his nose, cheekbones or chin, but Bolan looked like a product of the cultural crossroads the Hawaiian Islands had become. The haole was there in his bone structure for everyone to see, but by dint of Agent Hu’s artistry, if Bolan claimed to have a Hawaiian father or said he was half Portuguese and half Samoan, no Islander would dispute him at first glance. The lines and cicatrices of his numerous battle scars would only cement the deal. “You’re amazing.”
Hu shot him a smile. “I know. Listen, a lot of the work won’t last much more than the week. With three-quarters of your pores closed you need to worry about overheating if you overexert.” She gazed at Bolan in open appreciation. “And your beard and chest hair will start reasserting themselves ASAP.”
“What about the hairdo and the skin?”
Hu laughed. “It’ll take a chemical peel or a month to undo what I did to your skin, and if you want your hair back to normal you’ll have to let it grow out or come and see me.”
“What if I don’t want to come back? What if I asked you to stick around for a while?”
Hu perked an eyebrow. “What exactly are you saying, sunshine?”
“I like your style. I’m forming a posse. You want to be deputized?”
“Love it,” Hu responded. “But I’m not a field agent.”
“I know, but I’m thinking I need a girl on the ground who can blend in, run interference and run errands Koa and I can’t.”
Hu wrinkled her nose delightfully. “I don’t know how I would clear that with my superiors.”
“My people will clear it with your bosses. Can you shoot?”
“I’ve got an AK hidden in the Jeep.” Hu spread her hands and feet wide in invitation. “And if you want to see where I keep my PPK? We’ll just need to have ourselves a game of Treasure Island.”
Koa nodded. “I like her.”
Bolan met his own cobalt-blue gaze in the mirror. “What about the eyes?”
“I have three pairs of extended-wear browns for you, but since we’re already working you as a pleasing example of hybrid vigor, I’d stay with your oh-so-arctic blues. It’s downright striking, and you only have one chance to make a first impression. I say we throw off the opposition with your disturbing power.”
Bolan nodded at his reflection. “Koa?”
Koa let out a long breath as he took in Bolan’s transformation. “What Peg said. Given what the girl has done? You’ll have the power to seriously freak out some locals.”
Koa took a notebook out of his back pocket that looked as if it had seen heavy use in the past forty-eight hours. “Here’re some notes I made for you. It’s too late to teach you any slang much less the language—you’ll just screw it up. The good news is when my parents moved to the mainland some of our family was already there. I had a half cousin I barely knew. He dropped out of high school, moved to the east coast with some girl and just disappeared. You’re him.”
“What’s my name?”
“Makaha,” Koa said.
Bolan admired the randomness of it. “So we’re cousins?”
“That’s right. That gives me all rights to introduce you around and defend your ignorant, mainland-corrupted ways.”
“Nice.”
“I thought so.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“You’re looking for murder, mayhem and a native uprising?” Koa asked.
“That’s the current theory.”
“Then we go to my old stomping grounds. The most violent place in the Islands.”
“Where’s that?”
Koa nodded knowingly. “Happy Valley.”
Happy Valley, Maui
“You want to turn back?” Koa lifted his chin at the sliding-glass doors of the Takamiya Market as he drove. “This is where we U-turn.”
Bolan
